It was nighttime, the sun had already set.
We had arrived at our destination, a village that was said to have been destroyed, and we were immediately at work.

No, 'we' may not be the right word.
Because I'm the only one who's taking action at this stage.

After I finished the first action, Cyril and Satsuki exchanged words behind me.

'Hey, Satsuki.

'Yes.

'I think I understand your feelings a little better now.

'Right?'

'Yes. ...... That was unreasonable.'

I listened to their conversation from right to left, and watched the burning village ahead of me.

There were a lot of zombies lying around, either scattered in pieces or charred to a crisp and already immobile.
This was the result of the fireball spell I had fired.

When we arrived at the village after dusk, there was, as expected, a tremendous number of zombies.
Initially, there must have been over a hundred of them, and they were writhing around the village as the night fell.

They had just arrived at the entrance to the village, and when they spotted us, they approached slowly but in unison toward the light of our torches.
Zombies can attack us at a speed not much different from that of a normal human being in a short distance, but they move very slowly when they are more than a certain distance away.

So I started chanting a spell when I had drawn the zombies to a certain extent, and released a fireball spell.
The fireball that was released landed right on the point where the concentration of zombies was the highest, and caused a huge explosion.

The zombies there were blown away, or their heads and limbs were torn off, or they burned up, or they turned into black coals.

In total, there were about twenty of them.
The result was the scene that now spread before us.

When I say that the village was ablaze, I only mean that two abandoned houses in the vicinity of the fireball's blast were ablaze, not the entire village.
The area of influence of a single fireball is at most about ten meters in diameter, and naturally it does not have the power to burn down the entire village.

However, even that level of power is reasonably effective in rounding up the zombies that swarm around you when they see you alive.
It's such an easy job, especially since you don't need to lure them out of their hiding places.

I waited for a while after the first fireball, and when the zombies had gathered again, I fired a second fireball.
The fireball exploded again, and another 20 or so zombies were blown away.

'...... I wonder if we have a role to play.

'No, I don't think so.

'Mee doesn't want to fight zombies, so she's all for it.

The three girls let out their own thoughts.
I give them some information beforehand, as they are complete spectators.

'Fireballs consume a large amount of mana. You can fire up to five shots if you push it to the limit, but you want to keep some of your mana for emergencies. Therefore, if we consider four shots as usable resources, we have only two shots left. Even if I hit them with maximum efficiency, there will still be 20 to 30 of them left. That's all the "cover" I can provide. I'll leave it to Cyril and the others to take it from there.

'Oh, that....... Okay, I'll leave it to you.

Cyril said with an exasperated shrug of his shoulders.

The fireball spell is one of the simplest and therefore most useful attack spells used by mage class magicians.
However, as it is a high level spell, it consumes a large amount of magical elements.
It's not as easy to use as the sleep spell, and in that respect, it's a bit tougher.

'Hmm, the mage is not a good match for the undead.

'That's true.

In front of Satsuki's barely audible agreement, I fired the third fireball and reamed out the next group of zombies.